Courtesy of the “Wayback Machine“, I bring you the early entries I made in my online diabetes journal. This was back before Blogger made things easy, and I had to write the entries in HTML. The journal is no longer available, but thanks to the wonderful tools available on the internet, I was able to find much of my old stuff. I’d like to share one of the old entries with you.
This pump group I attended has since fallen apart. It is too bad, I got more useful information from my friends there than I have anywhere else since. Maybe someday I can help get something like it going again.
11 Aug 2000
I’ve been feeling much better these days. I spoke with the folks at my pump group about all the emotions and frustrations I’d been feeling. It was terribly depressing how common my feelings were among the members of the group. I found out that something like 15%-20% of the diabetic population are on anti-depressant medications – that is over 3 times greater than the general population!! Wow!! That really hit hard! I think that if I ever get to where I actually need to be prescribed another pill to get my emotions straightened out, it would make me more depressed than I already was! That is my strong spirit and stubbornness showing through again, but I hope to never get to that point.
As I explained the difficulties I was having with getting in to see a diabetic psychiatrist, one of the ladies gave me the name of a person she goes to. Turns out he is actually affiliated with the BHSI group. I figured I’d give him a try. After confirming with BCBS that I was covered for this (actually, I *think* that they gave me confirmation – they were very slippery as far as a definite yes or no was concerned. I guess I’ll see what I get billed for…??), I went ahead and made an appointment. This doctor is a long term type 1 diabetic, and wears an insulin pump. With that alone we hit it off right away.
The most important thing that came out of the first meeting was the amount of sleep I was getting on a nightly basis. I figured I was getting about 5-6 hours of sleep per night. He explained that it was very important to get a good solid 8 hours of sleep every single night. He went on to say that with proper sleep, one has an automatic resilience to keep fighting the fight!
We talked about a few other ideas, but wanted to focus on the sleep first. I’ve been getting 8 hours of sleep pretty consistently, and it has indeed helped!
Mostly, it helps with the little things – recording the BG readings, measuring food, counting carbs, etc. I also don’t feel so run down. It has really improved my overall attitude and energy.
Next, I’d like to work on my weight, eating habits and exercise. But, for now, just one step at a time.
After my last meeting with the pump group, I decided to register a domain name, and get a web site going for the group. We set up www.metro-pumpers.org(no longer active), and are working on getting some content on the site. I also registered the .com and .net domains – you never know what this stuff might turn into you know! I’ve set up a mailing list that people can subscribe to. There are directions on the metro pumpers site if you are interested. Like I said, it is *really* under construction now, but I’m hoping to get some help in setting it up. Heck, I don’t have time to keep this page updated…hehe!!